Boundless Learning shields
its customer journey from malicious web traffic with CHEQ
across Google & Meta
proactively blocked
invalid traffic
The Challenge
Boundless Learning™, a pioneer in online education and learning solutions, commands a digital presence that stretches across the globe. With such a large network of partners and learners worldwide, data integrity and security are critical concerns.
As the organization continued to expand, Senior Infrastructure Manager, Erwin Llereza, noticed a corresponding wave of fake and invalid users entering and engaging with their digital marketing campaigns and web content.
Erwin has spent nearly three decades in EdTech ensuring the systems behind the student experience are fast, stable, and safe, so his background made him keenly aware that malicious bots were slipping through ad campaigns and submitting junk form fills across request for information (RFI) contact forms. Many looked convincingly human, complete with realistic names, phone numbers, and browsing patterns.
Erwin suspected 20% to 30% of inbound requests created noise and unnecessary work, disrupting follow-up processes and wrecking efficiency across Boundless Learning’s tech stack. The cost showed up everywhere:
- Marketing experienced poor lead quality and conversation rates across Meta and Google ads.
- Sales spent time chasing down fake customers.
- Developers and architects were frequently asked to confirm whether each lead was real.
- Infrastructure and analytics insights became harder to trust.
The pace at which bad actors evolved their tactics meant native protections inside marketing automation, content management system (CMS) platforms, and legacy web application firewall (WAF) systems couldn’t keep up. They were too rigid, forcing a difficult decision with no good choice: Either block everything and hurt conversions or open the door to anyone and deal with the fallout.
Boundless Learning needed a smarter, more precise approach.
The Solution
Behind Erwin’s leadership, Boundless Learning partnered with CHEQ to protect its partners’ and learners’ outcomes, optimize its paid marketing budgets, and become better equipped to distinguish real prospects from junk leads and malicious actors.
Instead of broad filtering or heavy-handed blocking, Boundless Learning worked with the CHEQ team to calibrate their detection, exclusions, and reporting. Erwin’s suspicions were confirmed, and as predicted, Boundless Learning saw an immediate 20% to 30% reduction in traffic as bots and malicious requests were removed — improving the overall traffic quality dramatically.
Alongside optimizing traffic for higher quality, the partnership brought several additional benefits:
- CHEQ Analytics within Google Analytics unlocked granular reporting and identified specific threats, like IP spoofing, that were driving high invalid traffic rates.
- CHEQ Acquisition reduced fake clicks across Meta and Google by 40%, unlocking efficiency by reallocating budget to reach real prospective customers.
- CHEQ Form Guard delivered cleaner CRM and downstream workflows by mitigating fake RFIs and adding context behind why leads were invalid.
- The platform allowed for less manual investigation, freeing developers and architects from constant verification tasks.
- Improved traffic quality led to stronger internal trust, with fewer escalations and interruptions to Boundless Learning’s academic partners.
- Cleaner traffic provided better enrollment forecasting, more reliable ROI models, reduced friction in reporting, and more intuitive decision-making.
Product used:
“The more we grow, the more we’ll rely on CHEQ,” Erwin says. “It’s becoming part of how we show academic partners that we operate at the highest level.”
As Boundless Learning expands into new programs, launches new sites, and brings on more university partners, CHEQ’s intelligence plays a larger role in how the organization operates.
“We didn’t get into this business to chase down bad actors. We’re here to help people learn. CHEQ gives us the space to do that.”
About Boundless Learning
A pioneer in creation and implementation of tech-empowered education solutions for more than 30 years, Boundless Learning™ is leading the way in designing personalized, workforce-aligned experiences. Serving partners and learners in more than 150 countries, Boundless Learning has launched more than 450 online programs that boost access and create economic mobility around the world. For more information, visit BoundlessLearning.com or follow on LinkedIn at @BoundlessLearning.
Boundless Learning has innovated in edtech for 30+ years and launched 450+ programs worldwide.
Let’s work together to empower learning in your organization.
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